The Harveys Supermarket on West 48th Street shows all the signs of a store in its final days.
Posters proclaiming “Store Closing Sale!!!” are attached to the front windows. Shoppers going inside will find aisles of emptied out shelves. Prices are 25% off for remaining products.
But in an unexpected twist, The Winn-Dixie Company says it is delaying the previously announced mid-May closure for the West 48th Street store. That deferral came after the store’s fate suddenly became a flashpoint for whether City Council will approve a multimillion dollar incentive package aimed at keeping the company’s headquarters in Jacksonville.
Residents said closing the Harveys store would be another blow to a part of town already dealing with a lack of places to buy items such as fresh produce and meats.
“We need your help,” the Rev. R.L. Gundy of Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church told the City Council’s Finance Committee at its May 5 meeting. “We have pharmacy deserts. We have food deserts and we don’t need to go back and create another food desert.”
“Instead of creating deserts, lets create oases,” said the Rev. Aaron Flagg Jr. of Emanuel Missionary Baptist Church. “Let’s do something that’s positive.”
The Winn-Dixie Company currently operates 11 grocery stores in Jacksonville with the Winn-Dixie brand on them plus four Harveys Supermarket stores in the city.
The terms of the proposed economic development agreement would cover 13 grocery stores in Jacksonville comprised of the 11 stores currently branded with the Winn-Dixie logo and two Harveys being converted to Winn-Dixie stores on Moncrief Road and University Boulevard West.
The company announced in March it would be closing its two other Harveys stores in Jacksonville. Those are on Arlington Road in Arlington and at 201 W. 48th St. across the street from the Andrew Jackson High School sports complex off Main Street.
The West 48th Street store became the focal point of City Council members.
“I’m very disappointed to know now that you’re closing the store, and that is unacceptable,” City Council member Ju’Coby Pittman told Winn-Dixie leaders during the Finance Committee meeting.
Council defers vote on Winn-Dixie economic incentives
After Winn-Dixie officials said they understood Pittman’s concern and wanted to meet with her about the future of the store, Finance Committee Chairman Joe Carlucci deferred a vote on the incentives.
“We are going to keep the leverage on our side of the table so that you can work with Ms. Pittman to hopefully come up with some type of new arrangement,” Carlucci told Winn-Dixie officials. “I think this is a small ask.”
Meredith Hurley, senior director of communications and community for The Winn-Dixie Company, said May 6 the company decided to push back the closure of the Harveys so it can continue talks with city leaders about the best way to serve the community that uses the store.
“While discussions are ongoing and no final decisions have been made, the store will remain open as we continue to evaluate all available options with a focus on serving our customers and supporting our associates,” Hurley said.
She said Winn-Dixie has invested “and will continue to invest” in a Winn-Dixie branded grocery store on Norwood Avenue at Gateway Town Center, less than a mile from the Harveys.
Flagg told the Finance Committee the store at Gateway Town Center is too far away for residents, many of them senior citizens, to travel if they don’t have cars.
“I watch a lot of Westerns and if you’ve got to cross a desert, that’s a long way to go,” Flagg said. “You have to leave 48th and Main and go to Gateway to get groceries and if you don’t have a car, it’s difficult.”
Residents in that area do have an option of using the Door to Store transportation program operated by the Jacksonville Transportation Authority in partnership with the city.
The Harveys on 48th Street and the Winn-Dixie at Gateway are both in the Door to Store zone where residents can call and book a ride that takes them from their homes to the grocery store and back again. The service is available from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day except Sunday.
Councilman calls Winn-Dixie incentives ‘extortion’
While discussions unfold between The Winn-Dixie Company and city over the future of the 48th Street store, the company is asking City Council to support the incentives package geared toward keeping the company’s headquarters in Jacksonville.
The proposed incentives would be a $6.5 million headquarters retention grant paid out over five years and city property tax rebates worth up to $5.5 million over 20 years.
Winn-Dixie would keep 500 existing jobs at its Edgewood Court headquarters and add 200 jobs at that campus by the end of 2031. The retained and new jobs would have an average salary of at least $100,000.
Winn-Dixie would spend at least $65 million on improvements at the headquarters and its stores in Jacksonville. The breakdown is anticipated to be $17 million at the headquarters and $48 million spread across 13 grocery stores.
City Council member Rory Diamond blasted the proposed incentives, saying the city would be using “hardworking taxpayers’ dollars” to pick winners and losers.
“No one who is a conservative, no one who is a Republican, no one who says they are a steward of the taxpayers’ dollars can honestly keep their face straight when they say it,” Diamond said of the proposal. “This is extortion. If you want to go, go. Don’t beg for the money of the people of Jacksonville.”
But other council members largely supported the proposed incentives because it would keep the company’s headquarters in Jacksonville and add jobs in an economically distressed area.
“That area is desperately in need of more employment and these are $100,000 average jobs,” City Councilman Nick Howland said.
He said the $65 million in capital investment by the company in the headquarters and its stores also is positive.
What Winn-Dixie stores are covered by incentives agreement?
The economic development agreement lists the 13 store locations that would be covered:
The proposed economic development agreement stipulates that if Winn-Dixie were to close any of the stores that are in an economically distressed area, the incentive agreement would end unless Winn-Dixie opens a similar replacement store in a comparable economically distressed area within 18 months.
That requirement would help protect against those areas becoming food deserts. The four stores in economically distressed areas are at Gateway Town Center, College Park, Normandy Marketplace and Moncrief Road.
Mayor Donna Deegan, who supports the economic development agreement, wants to see what can be done to address concerns raised by residents, spokesman Phil Perry said.
“We understand the community’s concerns,” he said. “The company and involved parties are discussing potential options.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Fate of Harveys store complicates Winn-Dixie incentives vote
Reporting by David Bauerlein, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
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